Tuesday, August 20, 2013

WRITERS ON WRITING;

Easy on the Adverbs,

Exclamation Points and

Especially Hooptedoodle

By ELMORE LEONARD

(October 11, 1925 – August 20, 2013)

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help
me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather
than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for
language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you,
invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules.
Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather.

If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a
character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long.
The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are
exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to
describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather
reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue
following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are
ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and
you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet
Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the
point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in
a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's
talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way
he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I
like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a
book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some
pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But
I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want
hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''

3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the
verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive
than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy
ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop
reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this
way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing
himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the
rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how
she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per
100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers
the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''

This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have
noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control
in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue
phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to
stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices
in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's
''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with
him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.''
That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and
yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not
one adverb in sight.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes
with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even
if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the
action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you
skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too
many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating
hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone
into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's
thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to
go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the
sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible,
not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph
Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to
say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of
view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the
scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters
telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and
what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title
his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover.
''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday''
another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th
chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is
saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my
writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you
want.''

''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just
beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.

A poem (or more) will be offered by the hour or with the day and at the very least once a week. So stay on your webbed toes. The aim is to share good hearty-to-eat poetry. This is a birdhouse size file from the larger Longhouse which has been publishing from backwoods Vermont since 1971 books, hundreds of foldout booklets, postcards, sheafs, CD, landscape art, street readings, web publication, and notes left for the milkman. Established by Bob & Susan Arnold for your pleasure.The poems, essays, films & photographs on this site are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the author's go-ahead.

Lunatic Drawings by Bob Arnold

Link to the Lunatic Drawings PDF for a free preview

The Woodcutter Talks by Bob Arnold

Available from Longhouse. Please link on the image for ordering information. Drawing from years of poetry and also new poems, The Woodcutter Talks is Bob Arnold at his finest branching love poems with back country work poems and settlement with community, family and individual portraits. The extensive collection also showcases vintage photographs from woodcutters and woodchoppers and big-saw-pullers of old. Sweat runs down the cheeks of the mere literary and they adore one another.

Stone Hut by Bob Arnold

"Once again, my friends, this is your best book! Exquisite in design, fat enough to be a feast, pretty enough to just wade around in, but deep enough to dive into and stay with, all I can say is WOW, you guys really did it – it’s the first of its kind, a scrapbook novel that is also a how-to and a mystery -- how did he do it, and how does he make rocks balance like Thor? — Gerald Hausman" ~

Link to this review of "Stone Hut" by Bob Arnold

Museum, by Bob Arnold ~ new from Longhouse

Museum, An Unlikely Meditation, written by the poet Bob Arnold, is as much an unlikely novel. Visit this page for details.

Cid Corman's Of, Volumes 4 & 5 from Longhouse.

ANNOUNCING. The final volumes to Corman's opus in one book ~ of, volumes 4 & by Cid Corman. 1500 poems, 850 pages edited by Bob Arnold, now available in a limited edition from Longhouse, 2015. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information ~

Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega.

"Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega. The author completed the manuscript and left it as she wished with her executor Bob Arnold … New and available now from Longhouse ~ Poetry. 144 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the image for ordering information

John Bradley's "And Thereby Everything"

L O N G H O U S E is very proud to announce a new book by John Bradley in their on going series of S C O U T book publications — other titles from the series have been by Kent Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, Bob Arnold and Lorine Niedecker with more in the works. An opening salvo at the front of the book by Patrick Lawler should provide ample cover for what the reader should come to expect. And Thereby Everything John Bradley Longhouse 2015 First edition only issued in softcover 208 pages, perfect bound illustrated throughout by Bob Arnold with 150 photographs

Dudley Laufman : Bull & More Bull

Visit this page for information on this new Longhouse by Dudley Kaufman (2016)

Dudley Laufman's Islandian Poems

The Islandian Poems & Fables Dudley Laufman Longhouse 2015. 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the image to purchase this new title from Longhouse.

MIRZA ABD AL-QADER BIDEL / ROBIN MAGOWAN ~

New from Longhouse. Please click on the image

New from Longouse ~ Robin Magowan

New from Longhouse. Robin Magowan. The Garden of Amazement, Scattered Gems After Sâeb. large softcover glossy bound with an introduction by the translator, 112 pages

Duo by Bob Arnold — New from Longhouse Please link to A Longhouse Birdhouse for more information

DUO Bird Poems by BOB ARNOLD. New and available now from Longhouse ~ 92 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse

Start With The Tree by Bob Arnold

New in 2015. Building a marriage, building a family, building a small barn out in the woodlands together as a family, as a marriage, and seeing the roof go on. Over 150 color photographs

Beautiful Days by Bob Arnold

Beautiful Days ~ new poems of living and working in the Vermont woodlands and to Hurricane Irene

Yokel by Bob Arnold

[from "Yokel, A Long Green Mountain Poem" by Bob Arnold] ~ that and more at Bob Arnold webpage of books & poems: Please link on this image for more

Go West by Bob Arnold

Filled with poems and travel photography — shares one cross-country trip the couple took in the mid-1980s to California from Vermont.

"I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" by Bob Arnold

from Bob Arnold's new book "I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" ~~~~~~~40 years of love poems

"Rain Bear" by Bob Arnold

Bob Arnold's first children's book "Rain Bear" New and available now from Longhouse ~ 50 pages. Perfect bound softcover with photographs ~ & drawings by Jason Clark